Game of Thrones Season 5 Spoilers: What Book Events Can We Expect?

Game of ThronesSeason 4 is over, which means it’s time to start looking ahead to Season 5! While it’s still likely close to a year away, we can make some pretty good guesses as to what we’ll see based on the content of books four and five of A Song of Ice and Fire, upon which Season 5 will largely be based. Here’s what could be in store for us.

Warning! This article contains spoilers from the A Song of Ice and Fire book series, click away now if you don’t want to know!

At the Wall. Now that Stannis (Stephen Dillane) is at the Wall, he needs to shore up support in the North for his effort to take King’s Landing. His best hope for this is Jon Snow (Kit Harington), whom he offers to legitimize, thus making him Lord of Winterfell. Jon refuses and instead becomes the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Jon lets the Wildlings settle in uninhabited areas of the North, which makes enemies among his brothers. Jon has few friends after he sends Sam to Old Town to train to become a maester, and even fewer on the show since Pyp and Grenn have been killed off. The final straw with his brothers occurs when Ramsay Bolton sends Jon a letter from Winterfell insulting him, and Jon decides to head to Winterfell to overthrow Ramsay. This goes against the Night’s Watch’s vows not to become involved with politics, and in return his brothers stab him in a Julius Caesar moment. His fate remains unclear.

King’s Landing. King Tommen should reign all next season, with his Queen Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), but it won’t be an easy reign. Cersei (Lena Headey) will be calling the shots with Tywin out of the picture, and she’s a terrible decision maker. She accuses Margaery of having an affair, with no evidence, and in turn ends up herself being accused of infidelity, of which she is 100 percent guilty. She is sentenced to shave her head and walk naked through the streets of King’s Landing, but even that isn’t punishment enough: she still has to stand trial. She demands a trial by combat, and Ser Robert Strong (likely the reanimated Mountain) is scheduled to stand for her. Also in King’s Landing, Varys (Conleth Hill) reveals himself as a man behind the curtain when he assassinates Tywin’s brother Kevan and Grand Maester Pycelle, throwing his support behind the apparently alive Aegon Targaryen... more on him below.

Wandering across Essos. Now that he’s out of King’s Landing, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) goes on an adventure. He begins his journey with Illyrio Mopatis in Pentos, who sends him away in search of Daenerys with companions Griff and Young Griff. Tyrion figures out that his companions are actually former Hand to Aerys Jon Conington, and Rhaegar Targaryen’s believed-dead son Aegon Targaryen. They make it to Volantis, where Tyrion is captured by Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen), who wants to take him to Dany as a prisoner. Then the two of them are captured and sold into slavery, where they eventually break free at the borders of Meereen. Sadly, Tyrion and Dany do not meet, but maybe in the show they will!

Meereen. Speaking of Dany, she hangs around Meereen a bunch more. Her streets are riotous, and Hizdahr zo Loraq claims he can bring the peace if she marries him. She does, and he does, but everything isn’t hunky-dory. Yunkai is marching on Meereen’s walls, and Dany meets and turns down Oberyn Martell’s nephew, Quentyn, who comes to Meereen with a Martell/Targaryen marriage pact. Quentyn gets burned to death freeing Dany’s dragons like an idiot, and Dany herself rides out of Meereen on Drogon’s back after a failed poisoning attempt by Hizdahr. Should be a pretty sweet scene in the show.

Dorne. We should meet a bunch of Dornishmen (and Dornishwomen) next season, as Oberyn’s older brother Doran Martell reveals some of his plans. As we just mentioned, he sends his dopey son Quentyn to get himself killed, but he also has his super-attractive daughter Arianne, who attempts to crown Myrcella Baratheon Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, since according to Dornish law women can rule, too. Plus, that would make Aranne's other brother, Trystane, king, but her attempt is botched and Myrcella loses an ear. The Martells are cool and all, but their planning makes the Starks look like tactical geniuses.

Iron Islands. The Greyjoys should have themselves a kingsmoot in Season 5. What’s that, you ask? Well, Balon Greyjoy dies right when his exiled brother Euron shows up. Euron is a badass pirate and a total dick, and we really hope he makes it onto the show, along with his other brother, Victarion, who’s even more badass but a little less of a dick. There’s also one more brother, Aeron, but he’s pretty lame so we won’t mind if he’s cut. Anyway, they all want to be King of the Iron Islands, and Euron is chosen the winner because he has a horn that can tame dragons. He sends Victarion away to Meereen with the horn to bring him back Dany, but Victarion plans on keeping Dany for himself.

Winterfell. The Boltons arrange a wedding at Winterfell between Ramsay (Iwan Rheon) and someone pretending to be Arya Stark so the northern lords who still remain loyal to the Starks will get on the Bolton train. There are a bunch of Freys at the wedding, along with northern houses who lost men at the Red Wedding, so there’s lots of tension. Especially when Freys start dying. The killings are actually being done by Mance Rayder, who’s there in disguise to rescue “Arya” for Jon Snow. Theon/Reek is also present, and he eventually escapes with “Arya”... only to be scooped up by Stannis, who’s marching on Winterfell.

Braavos. Arya makes it to Braavos and trains to be a faceless man in the house of black and white. She is blinded for a time, assassinates people, and just continues her evolution into the Punisher.

Riverrun. Jaime goes completely Cersei-free and heads to Riverrun to try to get Blackfish Tully to surrender his castle. He eventually succeeds by turning Edmure over to the castle, but the Blackfish escapes. Jaime also receives a letter from Cersei when she is imprisoned asking for his help and he burns it. Jaime really doesn’t have much to do, but we imagine the show will invent ways to keep him around. They might almost be changing the Cersei/Jaime dynamic, based on the Season 4 finale.

Wandering across Westeros. Speaking of not having much to do, Brienne continues to wander around looking for Sansa. She meets a lot of people who don’t do much, but eventually she gets herself captured by Lady Stoneheart, AKA the re-animated corpse of Cat Stark. Stoneheart will only let Brienne live if she brings her Jaime, which Brienne does. We’ll have to wait until at least Season 6 to see how that meeting turns out, though; and that's assuming the show does eventually introduce Lady Stoneheart at all.

The Eyrie. Sansa also doesn’t have a lot left to do. The only other thing is an engagement to Harry Hardyng, the presumptive heir to the Eyrie after Robin Arryn. Not terribly exciting stuff, so we’re guessing the show either invents something for her or gets into Winds of Winter territory.

Beyond the Wall. White Walkers are still around, but shouldn’t make much noise in Season 5. Bran, like Sansa, has also basically completed his book arc. We could see him exploring his powers more, which could offer the show some tantalizing opportunities for flashbacks.

What are you looking for in Season 5? What do you hope they cut? Sound off in the comments below!